Vision 1505 offers housing for homeless with disabilities

Photographs by MOLLY BARTELS / COURIER &amp; PRESS
“I don’t have to worry about getting put out here. I can just focus on getting healthy and stable for my kids,” said Cassandra Hughes, who picks up items from her son’s room in the family’s apartment Wednesday. Vision 1505 is a permanent housing facility for homeless families with disabilities.

Evansville Courier &amp; Press

Cassandra Hughes didn't think her condition warranted a doctor's visit, until her friend found her passed out the floor of her bedroom.

Hughes coded twice in the ambulance. In the hospital, her kidneys failed and she slipped into a coma.

She eventually recovered from the urinary tract infection, but her kidneys will never function properly and she'll be on antibiotics the rest of her life. The coma left her mentally less than she used to be, and she already suffered from a seizure disorder.

Shortly after Hughes got out of the hospital, she said her family accidentally filled one of her prescriptions twice. She spent 37 days in jail on the drug charge. When she got out, she'd lost her apartment.

"I was homeless," Hughes said. "I was just going place to place, trying to find a place to lay my head."

Her 17-year-old son stayed with his dad, she said. And she found rest in shelters.

Then the shelter she was staying in kicked her out because they didn't have the medical staff to handle her seizures.

With no where left to go, she stumbled into Aurora, Inc., an Evansville-based homeless services organization.

It happened that Vision 1505, Aurora's first permanent supportive housing project for families with disabilities, had just opened in early January. Hughes became one of 32 disabled homeless people in Evansville to claim a spot. It will be her home forever, if she chooses.

"I'm still taking it all in," Hughes said, sitting at her new dining room table last week. "Everything here is so nice."

Like many of the formerly homeless families now living in Vision 1505 apartments — located in the newly renovated, former Vanderburgh County SAFE House building — Hughes is too disabled to work, and her income is meager. So the HUD funded housing project requires residents pay 30 percent of their income in rent, and on sight case workers help residents with budgets and planning.

"Our roles are so important here," said James Price, a case manager at Vision. "This program is meant for people who wouldn't make it in a normal situation; for people with the greatest barriers. Once they're here, we want to keep them here."

Hughes receives $27 a month in child support for her 17-year-old son, along with food stamps. She has no other income.

My son "needs things," she said. "It hurts not being able to give that for him, but we're figuring it out.

"It's hard going from getting to work to not being able to work," she added. "I ain't got nothing."

What few possessions she did have — mostly clothes — one of the shelters she stayed at donated to charity before she could pick them up.

But now, she has a new dining room table and chairs, a couch and chair, a coffee table, two beds and dressers, a washer and dryer, a dish washer and other household items. Vision apartments come fully furnished and decorated, said Taylor Nellis, a case manager at Vision. Moving into an empty apartment can be daunting, and depressing, he said.

Even with the new furniture and appliances, Hughes said her first night in her new home was stressful. She came in with nothing but a few articles of clothing; no television, book, magazine or even phone.

She washed her already clean clothes a couple times to give herself something to do.

Not long after that, her son moved in.

"I'm making do with what I've got," Hughes said, looking around her new living room. "I love the place. I'm never going to leave."

The staff at Vision said this is exactly the idea. Vision 1505 apartments are meant to be permanent — and private — homes for homeless families with disabilities. Although support staff is on sight, their services are optional — albeit encouraged. Once the honeymoon phase of living in a new home wears off, case workers find the residents need help adjusting to their new life. The formerly homeless residents are used to living in survival mode, being constantly afraid of losing their place. It's a difficult mentality to break, and that takes a toll on their health and well-being, Nellis said.

Nellis and Price check in with residents, help them make — and stick to — budgets, refer them to other government agencies and nonprofits, help them fill out job applications or Social Security forms.

Vision also hosts activities for the residents. Earlier this year, a local beauty school came and did ladies' hair and makeup. The staff is considering hosting a concert series this summer.

"It's a transition for them," Nellis said. "Our job is to ease that transition as much as possible."

As of last week, about half of the 32 apartments at Vision 1505 were full, and more people were on a waiting list applying for a spot. Residents have to be referred to the Vision staff by another local homeless agency. Only families are permitted, and a doctor must verify that one of the family members has a disability.

Since it is permanent housing, once the apartments are full, vacancies will rarely come open, Price said. He expects the facility to be full by the end of the month.

Aurora hopes to build more apartment complexes, like Vision, so those in the greatest need, like Hughes, can have a home, said Aurora's executive director, Luzada Hayes.

"2012 was one of the most horrific years," Hughes said. "2013 is my year."